The Geuzen Medal 2007 goes to the international human rights organisation Human Rights Watch. The Geuzen Medal will be presented in Vlaardingen on Tuesday 13 March.
Origin as Helsinki Watch
The history of the organisation goes back to 1978 when it was founded under the name Helsinki Watch to monitor the Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accords. In the 1980s Americas Watch was set up to investigate human rights violations in Latin America. Other ‘Watch’ organisations were established to cover human rights violations in different parts of the world and in 1988 they came together as Human Rights Watch.
Vision
HRW promotes the right to fair treatment for everyone in accordance with international law and standards. It seeks to prevent a repetition of the tragedies of the 20th century by monitoring and responding quickly and strategically to human rights violations.
HRW has achieved many significant results. The organisation was an active proponent of the International Criminal Court, which was established in The Hague in 2002 to investigate and prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Most of the investigations and cases before the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals were initiated based on HRW’s documentation: Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Chad’s Hissene Habre, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Congo’s Thomas Lubanga, Uganda’s Joseph Kony, and the many architects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and current crisis in Darfur were first exposed by HRW. HRW has fought tirelessly for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, including in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Lebanon. HRW has worked on behalf of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and has won reprieve for many, including Iranians who sought asylum in the Netherlands in 2006. HRW has successfully promoted several international treaties, including one banning the use of child soldiers, one prohibiting “disappearances” (abductions of civilians by the government which often end in executions), and one prohibiting the manufacture and use of landmines. In 1997, together with its partner organisations, HRW received the Nobel Peace Prize for its campaign against landmines.
Broad field of activity
HRW is dedicated to preventing and combating crimes against humanity and war crimes and takes action against such things as torture, censorship, ethnic and religious discrimination, and restrictions on freedom of movement and political freedoms. HRW promotes the rights of children, women, refugees, detainees, people affected by HIV/AIDS, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
Human Rights Watch is supported by the Human Rights Watch Council, a network of engaged volunteers in thirteen cities in Europe, Canada and the United States who assist with fundraising, outreach and advocacy.
Geuzen Medal
The award of the Geuzen Medal is an initiative of the Geuzen Resistance 1940-1945 Foundation.
Since 1987 the Foundation has awarded the Geuzen Medal to honour a person or organisation whose dedication to the promotion of democracy or the elimination of dictatorship, discrimination and racism has been expressed in a special way. Previous laureates include the German president Von Weizsäcker, the Anne Frank Foundation, the president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, the kidnapped Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, and the International Campaign for Tibet.
